Unilab Systemhaus GmbH Equipes with ETERNUS, PRIMERGY Solution

"As an IT systems vendor, it is our policy to only sell products we believe in. That is why we have used Fujitsu PRIMERGY server and ETERNUS storage systems for many years in our own data center and now also in a demo center for our customers"

Sabrina Eßer,
Service Center Manager, unilab Systemhaus GmbH

The customer

The unilab group of companies was first established 25 years ago as a cooperation between TU Braunschweig (Brunswick Technical University) and the former Nixdorf Computer GmbH. From these strong IT roots, the group has grown into a successful systems provider with sites in Paderborn, Dusseldorf and Hanover. unilab’s core expertise lies in its integrated approach to supplying ITC structures and support services to meet the needs of its SME customers. Through its business units unilab Consulting and unilab Hosting Solutions, it provides expert consulting services according to the latest standards and support for innovative research projects. unilab Software advises its customers on databases and software development. In addition to devising concepts, unilab Software is also responsible for further developing and optimizing existing databases as well as programing and implementing custom solutions.

The challenge

unilab is itself an SME that relies on redundant, high-performance IT systems. Since its existing data center hardware had become somewhat outdated (S5), the company was looking for a modern replacement. It also wanted to update its training for customer employees and sales partners. In addition, unilab was looking for suitable demo center hardware that would allow for the realistic modelling of customer scenarios or new IT architectures. “The majority of smaller clients simply cannot afford to build their own test environments to simulate new IT scenarios before they are implemented,” explains Sabrina Eßer, Manager of the unilab Service Center. “This is a service we wanted to be able to offer them with a high-performance demo center.”

The solution

The unilab training center is now equipped with a PRIMECENTER rack with six Fujitsu PRIMERGY RX200 S7 servers and an ETERNUS DX80 storage system. The company’s own network runs on PRIMERGY RX300 S7 servers.

Products and Services

Servers: 2 x PRIMERGY RX300 S7, 6 x PRIMERGY RX200 S7

Storage systems: 1 x ETERNUS DX90 S2, 1 x ETERNUS DX80 S2,

Operating system: Microsoft® Windows Server® 2012 Datacenter

The Benefit

High system availability on account of reliable servers and storage systems

An enhanced portfolio of services and higher quality training thanks to the high-performance demo center

Lower energy costs due to more economical systems

Better performance of the entire IT environment

Customer benefits

The Paderborn-based systems provider is a long-standing Fujitsu sales partner with an exceptional level of expertise that sets it apart from the competition. As a result, not only is unilab an authorised Fujitsu service partner, it is also a Fujitsu-qualified SELECT Expert partner in server and storage infrastructures. Thanks to the new data center hardware, the 50 unilab employees now have access to a redundant, higher performance IT infrastructure for their day-to-day work: “This combination offers exceptional value for money and stability as well as a high level of support,” advises Sabrina Eßer.

unilab’s core customer base includes companies with between 5 and 250 IT workstations as well as those without a dedicated IT department. For companies without IT departments in particular, it had previously been difficult to help them experience the benefits of modern servers, storage systems or virtualization applications such as Microsoft Hyper-V. “With our new demo center, our customers are now able to see the extraordinary processing capabilities of the Fujitsu servers for themselves,” continues Ms Eßer. “It soon becomes apparent that, in addition to their highly robust and stable design, these servers also offer impressive performance and energy savings. The background noise from the rack servers is also very low.” This is especially beneficial for smaller SMEs, which often do not have a dedicated data center and may have their servers in standard offices.

The demo center now has six PRIMERGY RX200 S7 servers, which are perfect for virtualization projects, cloud computing and small databases, in particular. These flexible systems can be adapted to the needs of the individual training topic or customer scenario. The RAM, for example, can be extended to 768 Gigabytes.

“We are now able to model much more in house,” adds Rainer Weber from unilab, one of whose responsibilities is to host training courses. “To be able to simulate a complex Hyper-V environment with various networks realistically, you have to have a backbone of several robust servers. We now have this thanks to the PRIMERGY systems. For me as a trainer, it is great to have such a high-performance demo center with genuine servers.”.

Conclusion

Every year, around 120 unilab customer employees, as well as Fujitsu sales partners now have the benefit of even more efficient training courses at unilab. Sabrina Eßer couldn’t be happier about the overall improvement in service quality:

“Many of our customers really appreciate being able to visit us for the training courses. Now that we can offer them even more added value benefits both us and our customers.”